Crucifixion - Ash Wednesday Note
Why does insight come upon arising? THIS is what I had to deal with BEFORE my feet touched the floor, BEFORE my morning coffee! Mercy! Not one but three crucifixion insights!
ONE
I love you, Jesus! I am very sorry that you had to prove your immortality via public execution, and a matter of record, to be sure people knew that your Death was the Truth. Only then could the Miracle of Resurrection be true as well!
As we Catholics begin the Lenten season today Ash Wednesday, we are reminded of our own mortality, and not to lord it over others who suffer or die. The concept is in every religion, belief system and government and tons of similar thoughts in the Bible, Old and New Testaments.
We are reminded that we are human and not divine. When we die our bodies are gone forever - but we are alive forever, in the spirit, to one extent or other - with huge variations depending on the individual. It’s still the call of the living over the remembrance of the dead.
Grief recovery is all about resolving that one - if the life was good, before the death, we want to remember it so that we can rebuild on good ground and find new life and new love with the confidence that comes from having enjoyed it in the past. It takes time, more or less, depending on the nature of the scenario but most people “get there” My loss was bad, but I got there and have again since - the recovery reveals wonderful possibilities along the new path.
TWO
But today is Ash Wednesday. As we begin the Lenten journey to Good Friday and Easter Sunday and a new Spring, we accept the evil of Crucifixion. As a girl, I thought only Jesus and a few others in olden days suffered such death but that changed with growing up.
I saw perfectly good men in my life crucified in every way but the physical, right before my eyes. They called it the way of things and simply ganged up on somebody and bullied them to pieces, in school, church, and community. And that was just the men! My upbringing was classic and educated and lovely in most ways - in some amazing ways, but the women were sometimes worse. In the name of creating and supporting virtue, they truly flayed any of the women or girls who wandered from the model of the correct feminine way of that day. But to me, the worst was when the men corrupted and then condemned a woman in their society, in most UNmanly way. “Myownnn” would never do that of course - so unheroic! But as I grew up I realized that even my own Father could make the devastating remark if pushed. They were and still are, a bit backward about their grieving.
As we age, more and more of us are widowed - what about now? Are we to be tarred and feathered, oppressed, exploited, bereft of what is ours? It happens all the time still, even in high places. You can SEE the group studying the scenario, wondering how much they can get away with on this grieving broken heart. So why did we need Nineleven? We are already as terrorized as need be!
What about now? Educated and active, I did my first counseling at Fort Knox, Kentucky, before our children were born and believed I was seeing the Parousia - the Second Coming - all human issues helped with counseling - no one left to die in sorrow! This is true up to a point and yet, the mess is still the basic. When someone is widowed and bereft of more than the spouse, they need and have a right to restorations - of equal value or better. Hasn’t happened yet and some even take PRIDE that it hasn’t happened yet, and stand watching their grieved, ready to exploit their efforts and recuperation. These vigilantes do not even consider that they have no right to the rights of the bereft. They have the holy mission to help, with kindness, social attention, and invitations of the nicest kind - NOT, adding insult to injury. Even Jesus was brought down from the Cross after a bit. But not “ourrown” sometimes.
THREE
Just in time for Lent, my church is cleaning up its act and expressing sorrow and anger and shame, and paying out what reparations can be made, for the abuses in sex and violence and monies uncovered in the Catholic Church here. Our good pastor was so sad and supportive, bearing guilt for sins he did commit. He should NOT cave like that - he should help as always, but he ought to rejoice that the sin has been uncovered and justice won and the goodness restored!
An evil that was happening has been stopped.
The time to feel shame was when the coverups were supported and the fact that “Failure to report makes you an accessory” a legal “basic” since the dawn of man, was overlooked and left to the point of PUTRIDITY.
The insolence of these criminals boggles the mind. But maybe it’s in part our group-howl over the “un-fix-able” harm done to all who believed in them and whose church experience has been undermined or at least threatened by their evil.
The good news is that our evolution means they won’t get away with it as before. We find them. We are educated and the children will tell their parents now.
There is a “left hand of God” in this - even in this:
Maybe this is why Jesus said I am the Light - not the men or their things - I …I AM!!! God’s church is here to help but it is not God - only God is God - the immutable Good.
The one we love, who empowers all other good loves on Earth and the Universe! “…who can neither deceive nor be deceived!” So, even when our faith in our earthly spiritual pathway is damaged, that leaves only GOD - only God and no one less. it probably makes most of us a bit less clueless, but sad when it happens this way.
We know there is Ash Wednesday and Lent and Good Friday and Crucifixion. But we know that there is also EASTER and Resurrection and Exultet! The prayer of rejoicing!
And this is my message for Ash Wednesday this year. LOOK in your life. Crucifier or Crucified, this is a grand time to FIX IT It’s easy and the rewards are great!
